


Alone

by Wrathofscribbles



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 08:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19373224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrathofscribbles/pseuds/Wrathofscribbles
Summary: The hands of fate are cruel in the world, and she is alone.Except, perhaps, for one.





	Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Its_only_me06](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Its_only_me06/gifts).



> **Big bold reminder that I don't own Dragon Age or any of its content.** I merely play in the sandbox Bioware created.

Illness takes Papa despite their best efforts and the mana she and Bethy pour into him every night, the hours and hours of study and helping the village healer, learning from her, learning the properties of the plants around their farm one trial and two errors at a time.  The light leaves his eyes and his hand falls limp in the wake of mother's screaming and she wasn't strong enough to stop it, wasn't smart enough, wasn't fast enough.

Bethany, crushed and mangled and cast aside like a mabari chew toy, dead before she hits the ground and mother's wails... oh, how loud they are, shrill above the ogre's roar.  Grief, _rage_ , "this is your fault!" and "how could you?"  They don't have time to bury her, they'll die if they linger, and so the best she can offer her little sister is cremation.  A blast of magic to keep her body free of the Darkspawn's wretchedness.  Not strong enough, not fast enough.  _I'm so sorry, Bethy._

They take Carver from her, too, the Darkspawn.  A creeping sickness below ground, a death sentence, a harmless cough to start with.  It takes hours to weaken him but it feels like a blink, a second, a single heartbeat, one sourpuss comment and then down he goes like an overworked horse.  She runs to him with a cry, a plea, _no, no please, not Carver too!_ But it's too late, her judgement and punishment marked in the black death seeping through his veins.  Magic to stop his heart and snap his neck, as quick and painless a death as she can offer.  Fire to keep his death from further corruption, so like Bethy, so different, weary smile still on his face.  Mother doesn't say a word when Hawke walks back through the door without her brother weeks later.  She doesn't have to.  Hawke knows, and she hates.  She made a grave mistake.

And then her mother dies but a few years later in some madman's lair, bloodied and butchered almost beyond recognition.  Hawke kills him, vicious hatred pounding through her skull and she'd rip his throat out if she had the teeth for it... but it doesn't change her mother's fate and, cut off from the magic tethering her in place, she falls.  Hawke barely catches her in time to hear her final words, close her eyes when they go distant and dull and cold just as Papa's did.

_How can you be proud of me, when I've killed you all?_

* * *

 Fenris comes to her on the third night after her mother's passing, food and wine and quiet companionship his peace offering.  She should send him away, she knows, him and the others.  She can't bring doom down upon their heads if she's alone but -

But she is weak and worn down and empty of any more tears to cry and Fenris is - safe.  He doesn't ask, he doesn't pry, simply sits with her in the dark and tends the fire when it gets low.

"I'm tired," she says at last, a confession, a weakness, and she doesn't deserve the understanding in his gaze or the care he shows when he wraps her in a blanket and disregards her unpleasant state.

"Then rest, Marian," he says, quiet, "I remain at your side."

And when he coaxes her head to his shoulder, she doesn't resist.


End file.
